Just when you thought EA had changed it's tune...

Nanor

Nanor

Well-Known Member
It comes up with some ingenious Copy Protection where you have to log on to a website every ten days or your copy is deactivated. Yes, really.

Well, I'm not buying Spore.
 
E

elDiablo

Guest
2 days after release. That's how long I'm giving until someone hacks that check out of the exe.
 
VibroAxe

VibroAxe

Junior Administrator
Shouldn't be too difficult to spoof, just clone the target IP on your network and work out how it needs to respond in order to be 'OK'
 
Macca

Macca

Member
Yeah the main difference is that the people who crack software are smarter than the people who make it in the first place.
 
BiG D

BiG D

Administrator
Staff member
Macca said:
Yeah the main difference is that the people who crack software are smarter than the people who make it in the first place.
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Not necessarily true. The authors are at a huge disadvantage not because of intelligence, but because of where the 'battle' is actually taking place. Traditional copy protection happens on the client's (consumer's, customer's, whatever) machine. Clients are insecure by default, and the author has to live with that. No matter how impeccable their protection software is, as soon as it's running on a client machine it's broken. Things like mod chips, drive emulation software, and 3rd party firmware are all things that are completely out of the author's control.

In order to combat this, copy authentication is slowly moving to hardware under the control of the authors. Online CD key checks have been in place for years (in fact, Quake 4 connected to a master server to validate its key every time you started it up, even if you were just playing single player.) Download services like Gametap and Steam are another form. MMOs are another example. In all of these cases, you authenticate against a master server somewhere, and usually it's disguised as a value add of some kind.

This Spore thing isn't all that different, as one of the big selling points of Spore is the online capabilities. The system as it's described will cause me no inconvenience, so it really doesn't bother me.
 
Macca

Macca

Member
BiG D said:
Not necessarily true. The authors are at a huge disadvantage not because of intelligence, but because of where the 'battle' is actually taking place. Traditional copy protection happens on the client's (consumer's, customer's, whatever) machine. Clients are insecure by default, and the author has to live with that. No matter how impeccable their protection software is, as soon as it's running on a client machine it's broken. Things like mod chips, drive emulation software, and 3rd party firmware are all things that are completely out of the author's control.

In order to combat this, copy authentication is slowly moving to hardware under the control of the authors. Online CD key checks have been in place for years (in fact, Quake 4 connected to a master server to validate its key every time you started it up, even if you were just playing single player.) Download services like Gametap and Steam are another form. MMOs are another example. In all of these cases, you authenticate against a master server somewhere, and usually it's disguised as a value add of some kind.

This Spore thing isn't all that different, as one of the big selling points of Spore is the online capabilities. The system as it's described will cause me no inconvenience, so it really doesn't bother me.
Click to expand...

I stand corrected :). What I really meant was that 9/10 time people find ways to bypass such protocols.
 
BiG D

BiG D

Administrator
Staff member
Macca said:
I stand corrected :). What I really meant was that 9/10 time people find ways to bypass such protocols.
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I'd say the percentage is higher than that, even. :) And I do agree that the pirates are probably smarter, that's just not the only reason why they're winning.
 
DeZmond

DeZmond

Junior Administrator
There is a program called Fiddler which, when run, can emulate certain types of web script requests. There was a hack for the Audiosurf Beta that used this method with success.
 
E

elDiablo

Guest
BiG D said:
...The system as it's described will cause me no inconvenience, so it really doesn't bother me.
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Imagine, if you will, that your internet dies. Or you change ISPs. And it takes more then 10 days. Maybe there is a problem with the line? Who knows. Whatever. The fact is, that after those 10 days, you will not be able to play Spore. Even single player, without the want to get other player's content from the internet. Just a nice quick game. Maybe to show it off. And you can't.

It might not inconvenience you, but it can. And it's the principle of the thing, damnit! :D

Edit - Otherwise I completely agree with everything else you said...
 
thatbloke

thatbloke

Junior Administrator
Online ACTIVATION I can deal with.

Playing games on a service such as steam is fine. That is a digital distribution service - You purchase the games online and download them online - being online while playing them is no problem. And steam doesn't mind being offline either.

Having to dial home every 10 days, is, as elD says, a problem. If I move, if my ISP goes under, they shitty way that broadband is managed in the UK means that something like that could cause me to be without internet for a month or even longer.

Having a piece of software that is rendered inoperable after i have paid for it and activated for the first time simply because i do not have an internet connection is quite frankly, absurd.

I understand that we are moving into a technological age here and that nowadays having a computer (or even a console) without an internet connection is like trying to run with two broken legs, but it can still happen.
 
Dragon

Dragon

Well-Known Member
So people without an internet connection can't play Spore ... look at the relatively low salesnumbers Half Life 2 got and tell me a reason for this. Yes, maybe there will be many more cracked versions if it isn't verified online, but still you make a loss, because 1/4 of the buyers cannot buy it due to a lack of internet connection.
 
DeZmond

DeZmond

Junior Administrator
thatbloke said:
I understand that we are moving into a technological age here and that nowadays having a computer (or even a console) without an internet connection is like trying to run with two broken legs, but it can still happen.
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That is exactly the reason I am opposed to steam also. Sure, there's an offline mode, but having needed to use it, I can vouch that it is inconsistent at best, and at times will force you to go online anyway before it will work. Also, if you think about the sheer amount of updates for each game, and the decryption of retail copies, and you're definitely needing not just an internet connection, but broadband. Try updating retail HL2 over dial up. Yep, didn't think so. :/
 
Ronin Storm

Ronin Storm

Administrator
Staff member
A little more fuel into this debate...

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=137500

Eurogamer said:
Taylor believes one way to combat [PC game piracy] is by ramping up digital authentication, and to offer more post-launch content only available to legitimate, registered owners.

"I think that we're going to see more digital authentication, and we're going to see more of an approach that says that PC games aren't products - they're a service," added Taylor.
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Also:

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=134872

Eurogamer said:
"It was a big lesson for us and I believe we won't have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future. We are going to support PC, but not exclusive any more," he said.
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It may be getting to the point where, as PC gamers, we either accept some of these controls or accept that our games are all going to go to the consoles and that to keep our preferred (?) platform alive we need to support some of these games despite the controls.

I'm not entirely sure I'm only playing devil's advocate there, either.
 
Traxata

Traxata

Junior Administrator
That being said, I was pretty sure that there are more PC gamers in the world than there are console gamers... sure theres the hybrid between them, but people like me who can't be bothered to play on a console because they hate the stupid controllers... if thats the case, then people like myself who only play PC games are going to end up fucked over, however if it comes down to requiring online activation thats fine. However I don't like the every 10 days idea. The one that Bioshock gave us, locking the DVD to your machine that was fine, its just the aforementioned 10 day thing, if it was automated I don't think there would be a problem.
 
VibroAxe

VibroAxe

Junior Administrator
Traxata said:
That being said, I was pretty sure that there are more PC gamers in the world than there are console gamers... sure theres the hybrid between them, but people like me who can't be bothered to play on a console because they hate the stupid controllers... if thats the case, then people like myself who only play PC games are going to end up fucked over, however if it comes down to requiring online activation thats fine. However I don't like the every 10 days idea. The one that Bioshock gave us, locking the DVD to your machine that was fine, its just the aforementioned 10 day thing, if it was automated I don't think there would be a problem.
Click to expand...

Now that an interesting take on things. Personally I have far more of an issue with someone locking a game to my PC, I upgrade, I reformat, I change OS and use different computers on a regular basis, if I own the game I should be allowed to play it when and where I want to. If this means I have to be connected to the internet to make sure that i'm only playing it once, i'm ok with that
 
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